Ocean to Ocean on Horseback / Being the Story of a Tour in the Saddle from the Atlantic to the Pacific; with Especial Reference to the Early History and Development of Cities and Towns Along the Route; and Regions Traversed Beyond the Mississippi; Together with Incidents, Anecdotes and Adventures of the Journey

by Willard W. Glazier

Found a good night's rest at the quiet farm-house of the Lloyds, on the night of the fifth, and after an early breakfast on the following morning called for my horse and started for Cleveland. On my way out, near Wickliffe, I overtook a troop of girls on their way to school. One of them, a bright-faced little maid, giving her name as Ettie Warren, and saying she was a granddaughter of Mr. Lloyd, asked me to accept a bouquet, which had no doubt been intended for her teacher. It was a mass of gay colors, which had been gathered from the home garden, and its huge proportions quite appalled me. However, I accepted it with mock gravity, and as she and her small companions kept beside me, I could overhear a whispered conversation of very secret import, which resolved itself into the question, "Do you like apples, mister?" I confessed my fondness for the fruit, and was soon the chagrined possessor of a pocketful of green ones, which this sunburned little daughter of Eve generously offered. Before riding into town I was obliged to consign these gifts to the roadside, but not without a certain guilty feeling, and sympathy for the cheated school ma'am.

Passed through the village of Mentor, a pleasant little place six miles from Cleveland, the home of Hon. J. A. Garfield, then an Ohio Congressman.

Noting much excitement as I approached Euclid, I dismounted to learn the cause, and found it was due to a rumor that General Custer and his entire command had been massacred by Indians. The source of this information made it appear reliable, and yet comparatively few were disposed to believe it. My long association with the General during the War of the Rebellion led me to take the thought of his death very much to heart, although I was yet unwilling to credit what I had heard. At the Forest City House, whither I had been escorted by a delegation of G. A. R. friends, the truth of the report was discussed, and the deepest regret manifested, should such a fate have befallen the brave cavalryman.

In the evening I lectured at Garrett's Hall, where Major E. M. Hessler introduced me. Later, in behalf of a number of citizens, the Major proposed a banquet in my honor, but this I felt justified in declining, owing to imperative duties in connection with my journey. The rest of my time here was passed in looking about the city, and in talking with some of the "Forest City" people, who are pardonably proud of their home on Lake Erie. This part of the State was a great hunting-ground for the Indians in former days, who came to make war on the bear and beaver. They started eastward in the autumn and paddled down the lake, entire villages at a time, to the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, on whose banks they piled their birch canoes and then scattered through the neighboring forests. Returning in the spring to a small cabin which had been built near their landing-place by the Northwestern Fur Company, they disposed of their spoils, and when their business with their white brothers was over, re-embarked for their summer homes on the Maumee and Sandusky.

When General Moses Cleveland came with a surveying party in 1796 to lay out the site of the chief city of the "Reserve" for the Connecticut Land Company, the cabin of the fur-traders was still standing, but was in too dilapidated a condition to be of use. Two more cabins were therefore raised, one for the party, and the other for Job Stiles, and his wife Tabitha, who was housekeeper. When the plans were finished the woman of the settlement found herself the possessor of one city lot, one ten-acre lot, and one one hundred-acre lot, a donation from the directors and stockholders of the company, made no doubt in consideration of her services, and from the fact that she was the first white woman to take up her abode on the new ground. Two more gifts of the valuable land were made, one to Nathaniel Doane, the company's blacksmith, who had kept their pack-mules shod, and the other to James Kingsbury and his wife, the first who emigrated independently to the Reserve. Within eighty years the worth of this property had increased surprisingly, but the first owners had long since ceased to care for worldly goods, and the land had been resold many times. Buildings that would have astonished those early folk had replaced their simple cabins, and thousands of strange feet were treading in their old haunts.

For several years, in fact until the opening of the Ohio Canal in 1834, the population of Cleveland increased very slowly. A year after the survey, the homes "under the hill" along the right bank of the Cuyahoga had to be removed to the ridge, for even at that time fever and ague began to trouble the settlers. This disagreeable malady, wittily personified as "Ague-agueshakershake,"—the God of Lake Erie—was a continual bugbear and made yearly attacks upon the families. So widespread was the reputation it had gained that a stranger stopping at Buffalo, then a rival port, was told that if he went to Cleveland he "would not live over night." On the highlands the exposure was much less, and soon all the cabins were built there. Then they began to spread out along the ridge toward the east, in the direction of Euclid, following the line of the Euclid Road, which even then was a popular place on which to have a section and build. In 1801, the first well in Cleveland was dug on this thoroughfare, and was walled in with stones which the Indians had left from their wigwam fireplaces. Two years later Connecticut ceded her Western Reserve, which she had held under an old charter, to the General Government and the chief city transferred her allegiance to the new State of Ohio.

Gradually the settlement spread out into the surrounding country, where ambitious hamlets, having enjoyed their brief season of independence, ultimately cast their fortune with the larger city, and became a sharer in its triumphs. One of these, which had attained more importance than the rest, had started up on the opposite bank of the Cuyahoga, and assumed the bravado of a rival. Cleveland made several advances to her which were met with coolness, and at last both villages applied for charters; the one on the left bank receiving hers first and glorying in her new name of "Ohio City." Again Cleveland besought a conciliation and tried to persuade the independent little rival neighbor to change her name, and become one with her, but with ill success. As time wore on, however, population decreased on the left shore and increased on the right, and signs of union became apparent from the fact that "Ohio City" reached out to the southeast, while Cleveland met her half-way by extending toward the southwest. We are not sure how matters were arranged between the two rivals when the final step was taken, but at any rate it was a felicitous event, and now that the coveted neighbor has become the West Side, some Clevelanders find it difficult to determine which is the "better-half."

In those early days before the railroads reached her, this new Ohio town was obliged to look about for other means of transportation, and we hear of one of her pioneers establishing a boat yard in the woods a mile and a half from the lake. Here the engineer cut his timber and carried out his plan for the first boat built at Cleveland. The framework was raised in a clearing of the forest, from whence a rough road led to the water, and in this wild but convenient spot the schooner was finished, and ready to be introduced to the world as "The Pilot." The farmers of the surrounding country were invited to assist in the launching and accordingly came into town on the all-important day, with their oxen, to haul the craft down to the shore. The ceremony was greeted with resounding cheers, and Levi Johnson received his first congratulations from his fellow-townsmen. This was in 1814. He afterwards built a steamboat and gave it the name of one of his own characteristic traits, "Enterprise."

In 1816, although the itinerant preachers who had visited the place would scarcely have credited it, a church was organized and an Episcopalian form of worship established, which later grew into Trinity Church and Parish. Hitherto a bugle had called the people together when a clergyman appeared, and the most primitive services followed. On one of these occasions, well-known to those who lived in Cleveland when it was still a churchless community, Lorenzo Dow was announced to preach. He was an eccentric man and the place reputed to be a bad one. His congregation, who were waiting under a large oak, did not recognize the solitary figure approaching in his shirt sleeves, and, as he quietly sat upon the ground in their midst, and his head dropped upon his knees in silent prayer, one in the crowd enquired if he were Lorenzo Dow. Some one answered, "Yes," but another irreverently said in an undertone, "It's the devil." Dow overheard the remark, and rising, preached to his hearers such a sermon on Gehenna that they never forgot it, or him.